Personal use motor vehicles such as automobiles, station wagons, hatchbacks, sports utility vehicles, vans, and, in recent years, pick-up trucks are used on an almost daily basis to transport people and to transport articles for household use. Consumer articles such as groceries are typically bagged and placed inside the vehicle on a seat, floor area or trunk area. Consumer articles such as potted plants are more likely to be put into a trunk area or a back cargo area of the vehicle. Small reuseable articles for occasional use such as fishing tackle, sports equipment and the like will likely be placed in the vehicle where they can be out of sight but conveniently retrieved, e.g. the trunk or cargo area.
Anyone who has ever driven a motor vehicle knows that small articles to be transported can pose a problem. Grocery bags in particular represent a widely experienced problem. They tend to fall over and spill their contents when the vehicle turns a corner even at slow speeds and certainly upon sudden stops. The problem is lessened in automobiles that have deep back seat floor wells. Vehicles with a flat floor area or a flat back cargo area present a real challenge.
The problems of transporting small articles in the personal vehicle without incident is well recognized. Most people will carefully pack articles up against a back seat and door wall or place objects such as blankets around the articles to keep them from tipping. This can work depending on the care and effort expended by the individual. Others have purchased various racks and organizers sold for this purpose. For example, see U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,718,584, 4,842,460 and 5,031,7669. The racks and organizers appear to serve their purpose. However, it is also apparent that such products take up valuable space when not in use. They also tend not to be versatile in the types of articles they can effectively hold.
Motorists have widely experienced problems with transporting the occasional personal items for many years without having a good solution. In accord with this need, there has now been developed a system for use in motor vehicles of all styles that solve the problem. The system is economical, its use is readily understood and it is effective for transporting a variety of different sized and shaped articles.